by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test featured, General Blog
I don’t know if I’ve ever faced a harder challenge in my parenting years than raising twins.
Maybe it’s because our twins came near the end of the line of boys and they see all their older brothers do, and they expect that life will be exactly like that for them.
Except there are two of them.
Oh, you want to drink out of a big-boy cup because your older brother did it when he was 2? I’m sorry. There are two of you.
Oh, you want to sit free at the table instead of strapped into your chairs because all your brothers did it when they were almost 3? I’m sorry. There are two of you.
What? You want me to leave the baby gate on your door open because you haven’t yet figured out how to climb over it (it’s coming)? I’m sorry. In case you haven’t noticed, THERE ARE TWO OF YOU.
Our twins are identical, two sides of the same egg. Nature’s gift, doctors say. One is left-handed, one is right-handed. They complete each other.
That’s part of the problem. What one doesn’t think of, the other does. What one is afraid to do, the other will try.
It’s like having four toddler wrecking balls walking around the house, scheming about what they can destroy next. I imagine their conversations go a little something like this:
Twin 1: Hey. Hey, bro. Mama’s not watching. Remember how she told us not to touch this computer? She’ll never know. Where is she?
Twin 2: She’s in the bathroom. Remember what we did last time she was in the bathroom?
Twin 1: Oh, man. That was fun. But this computer. She’ll never know. I just can’t figure out how to open it.
Twin 2: Like this. But how do you turn it on?
Twin 1: Easy. I’ve seen Daddy press this button right here.
Twin 2: There it is.
(Mama comes back into the room with the baby she just changed.)
Twin 1: Close it, close it, close it!
Twin 2: Walk away. Not too fast, not too slow. Just enough to look like we weren’t doing anything.
I love my twins. Of course I do. It’s just that they were unexpected.
If I could have read a primer two years ago, this is what it might have said:
Every parent of twins needs…
1. An extra dose of patience.
You will need this for many things. You will need it for the stranger at the store who asks to see your amazing bundles of joy and, after looking at their angelic sleeping faces, declares she “always wanted twins” and you want to say, “Oh, really? Then take mine,” because one was up screaming at 3 a.m. and as soon as you got him calmed down two hours later the other one woke up screaming, and as soon as you got that one calmed down an hour later all the other boys were up asking for breakfast. Which woke up the twins, who were also hungry. Again.
You will need it for when they learn to talk and there are so.many.words and so.many.whys and so many demands for everything under the sun. You will need it for the potty training and the big-boy-bed transitions and the constant fighting from dawn until dusk.
You will need it for the times you were helping one out of his pajamas and into his day clothes and you return back downstairs to find all the dust jackets removed from your poetry books and spread across the living room floor like a special carpet for toddler feet, for the six thousandth time (You should probably just put those books away, Mama. Far, far away.).
2. Good decision-making skills.
These will come into play those times they both wake up at 3 a.m. because they’re hungry. Which one do you feed first? (Answer: You’ll figure out a way to feed both at the same time.)
You’ll need these skills when one twin is in the downstairs bathroom playing with a plunger in a potty you specifically remember your older boy didn’t flush five minutes ago when he stunk it up and the other is in his bathroom upstairs finger painting the mirror with a whole tube of eco-friendly toothpaste. Which do you get first? (Answer: The toilet one. Toothpaste is much easier to clean than the mess an overzealous plunger can make.)
You’ll need them when the one who’s known for wandering does exactly that, moves from his nap time place while you take a minute or five for a shower, because it’s been four days since the last one, and you walk out to find him playing with the computer he’s been told 50 billion times to leave alone and, in his panic to close it, he deletes the 1,500 words you wrote this morning before kids got up. What do you do? (Answer: Cry.)
3. A rigorous workout regimen.
When one is running down the street because someone forgot to lock the deadbolt he can’t reach and another is going out back without shoes in 26-degree rain, you’ll want to be in shape for that. I recommend interval training. That way when they stop and change directions, you’ll be ready. You’ve done this a thousand times. Ski jumps. Football runs. All-out sprints.
When they slip, unnoticed (because they’re like ninjas), into the playroom while you’re wiping down the table after a ridiculously messy lunch, and both of them come out with their scooters, you’ll want to be able to wrestle those “cooters” from screaming, flailing bodies without hurting anyone.
And when one collapses in the middle of the park because it’s time to go and he’s not ready yet and the other thinks that just might work, you’ll need strong arms to carry 32 pounds of kicking and screaming twins back to the car, one tucked under each armpit.
4. Containment measures.
This would be things like strollers until they’re 3 and booster seats until they’re 4 and a baby gate on their door until they’re…15. Okay, maybe 13.
It also means leashes at the city zoo on a packed day, even though you said you’d never use them and you can feel the disapproval of other people and you want to say, “Come talk to me when you have 2-year-old twins. These things have saved their lives 17 billion times, and that was before we even got out of the parking lot.”
Containment saves lives. And sanity.
Twins are great. And hard. And maddening. And great. And so hard.
They can disassemble an 8-year-old’s room of LEGO Star Wars ships in 3.1 seconds. They can disassemble a heart with one identical smile and a valiant try at saying “Uptown funk you up” that sounds like it should have come with a bleep.
There’s just nothing like them in the world. You’ll be so glad you get to be their mama.
Especially after they fall asleep.
This is an excerpt from , Parenting Is the Hardest Insane Asylum Ever, a humor book that does not yet have a release date. To read more of my humor essays, visit Crash Test Parents.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
All of us have our shortcomings. That’s for sure. No one is perfect, after all.
For all the shortcomings I notice about myself (and there are a lot, let me tell you), probably about 80 percent of them are true, because I’m a child of divorce and suffer from self-esteem issues and blah blah blah, I don’t want to bore you.
But this amazing thing happened when I became a parent. All of those shortcomings disappeared. That 80 percent dropped to zero percent.
How did I make that happen? Well, that’s easy. I just blame everything on the kids.
Like…
The smells.
Every now and again, I’ll be in the store, perusing the aisles like any other shopper, except I’ll suddenly inhale and realize my nose hairs are singed. “Oh my gosh,” I’ll say, loudly. “Did one of you toot?” The boys will look at me and laugh, because just the IDEA of a toot makes boys laugh, even if none of them claims it. They don’t claim it because it was me. But the other shoppers don’t know that. So I innocently continue on, cropdusting through the produce section, the healthy living section, the dairy section and then on toward the checkout counter. Next time I’ll think twice before I gorge on hummus and then head to the store. Lucky I had my kids with me.
There are other smells I blame on my kids, but these are legit. Like how my house smells like a swamp because boys are really bad at aiming, and, apparently, flushing. Like how my backyard smells like a gas tank, because my 4-year-olds managed to pick the lock on the shed out back and dump the lawnmower’s gas supply out all over themselves and the grass so we could all go out in a blaze of glory (this isn’t the first time, either. There is no place that isn’t dangerous when you have twins.). Like the sour milk/mildew/fart/dirty sock smell that wafts out into the world every time we open our van doors because, well, boys. It’s like the air freshener you always wanted in your Honda Odyssey, one that tells the story of a family. I know I’ll miss it when it’s gone. Which is a good thing, because it never is.
The state of our house.
The reason our house looks like a paper supply manufacturer blew up in it is because my kids enjoy creating colorful forts out of construction paper when they’re supposed to be in bed and Husband and I have already fallen asleep. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m too lazy to get a trash bag out and sweep it all into a dump. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I might have heard them out of their beds last night but I was too exhausted to go check. All those papers? They make great sliders when I’m lifting weights, so win win.
My kids are also the reason everything in my house is broken. The coffee maker didn’t actually explode because I poured water in the wrong slot. It exploded because my kid rigged it to break when I wasn’t looking. The toilet didn’t stop flushing because Husband took a massive sit-down and used a whole roll of toilet paper. It stopped flushing because one of the 4-year-old twins looked at it. That hole in the wall did not appear because I accidentally threw a shoe toward the shoe basket and missed by about 500 yards. It appeared because boys weakened the drywall by touching it.
The door won’t open all the way? The fan is missing a blade? The kitchen chair collapsed when I sat in it? Come on, kids.
The state of my yard.
Kids are the reason we hardly ever get around to mowing our yard. Do you know how hard it is to muster up the energy to pick up all the crap kids leave outside and know there’s still something else you have to do? (I suspect you do know, if you’re a parent.) So after you’ve spent three hours playing “search and find all the Hot Wheels” because your backyard turned into a wilderness, you’re supposed to mow and weed eat and edge? No thanks. My ugly yard is the fault of my kids.
And not just the overgrown grass and the tree-weeds and the rose bushes that reach for you when you knock on our door. Also the holes you’ll trip in when you’re trying to play that Search and Find game in the backyard. My kids are using table spoons to dig a hole to the earth’s core. I know, because they told me. Also, I fell in the hole, and Husband had to pull me out with a rope. I think they’re almost there.
Being late.
It doesn’t matter how early we get up to go somewhere or how prepared we are for the day, shoes lined up just so, outfits picked out, breakfast already in the refrigerator, waiting to be warmed. We’re going to get in the car at least fifteen minutes late—and that’s a good day. All the boys could have every single bag in the world packed, and they would still remember something they need to “go back inside” to find. Someone will have to go pee. Someone else will spill their water all over themselves and scream until they get a change of clothes, because they don’t want to “wear wet underwear all day!” Someone else will squeeze out a fart and accidentally shart.
Kids make parents late. Don’t worry. You’ll never remember how to get anywhere on time once you’ve been through the circus kids perform on the way out the door. So just sit back and relax and blame it on the kids while you can.
The rapid deterioration of my brain.
I used to be able to hold my own in the intelligence department. I don’t say that to brag. I knew what the square root of sixty-four was. I knew what three times forty-seven was without using a calculator. I knew what entropy was an how it was explained using physics (though I never truly understood its potency until I had kids). Now? My kids ask me how many pieces of pizza Suzy had if there was pizza with thirteen pieces and Margie had three of those pieces and Terrance had fifteen. I get all nervous, because I DON’T KNOW. I don’t know how to solve their math anymore. I aced college algebra, but I can’t do a second-grade math problem.
While we’re on the subject, here’s some math for you. I had a whole brain. I had six kids. Each of those six kids got a piece of the brain. How much of my brain is left?
The answer is not much.
The stains on my shirt.
No, I’m not a messy eater. I just have kids who like to touch me with food on their hands.
You’ll never actually know if this is true or not, because I’ve sworn Husband to secrecy. Only the two of us will know that the last time we went out on a date (which I can hardly remember, it was so long ago), I dropped jalepeno ranch dip all down the front-side of my shirt, and there was no kid within fifteen miles of that restaurant. Only the two of us will know that when we swung by the froyo place for a tasty treat, we ate it in the car, and when I turned on the light to check my face, there was a string of chocolate ice cream clinging to my shoulder (I’m pretty sure Husband flung it in his excitement to shovel a mouthful in his piehole). No one will know that when I’m huddled in my pantry, eating a handful of chocolate chips Husband hasn’t found yet, I’ll end up with the evidence on my thighs. The shorts that cover my thighs, that is. I mean, on the thighs, too. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips. Who cares?
Going to a Fresh Beat Band concert.
I only bought tickets because I have kids. It’s not because I think the Fresh Beat Band is the coolest kids band ever and every time one of their songs comes on I just want to break out dancing. (Well, so what if that’s true?)
If you see me playing with the build-a-house blocks at the San Antonio Children’s Museum, it’s because of the kids. If you see me dressing up like a royal queen in a too-short cape at the Witte Museum, it’s because of the kids. If you see me playing with Legos and building a Star Wars Desert Outpost, it’s because of the kids.
I’m realizing here that you can pretty much blame anything on kids. You want to be perfect? All you need is someone to blame everything on. Which makes you a perfect candidate for becoming a parent.
Seriously, though, the truth of the matter is that we all make mistakes. We all have imperfections. Who am I to hold you in judgement? Who are you to hold me in judgement? We’re all just doing the best we can, so we should embrace our mistakes.
Because as long as we have kids, we can blame EVERYTHING on them. Now. Go live it up and do some blaming.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Parenting is simpler than ever in our day and age. So much advice exists that you can’t really go wrong, even if you tried. All you have to do is:
1. Make sure your kids can do their homework themselves, because they’ll need to be able to apply for a job someday.
2. But also make sure they know you’re there if they need an answer or two on that project due tomorrow—kids feel abandoned when we don’t help.
3. Make sure they get ample time to play, because play is how they learn.
4. But also make sure you take some of their free time away to teach them how to tie their shoes and read and write their names and complete sentences before they go to kindergarten, even though when we were in kindergarten it was all fun and games and mostly coloring (it’s a different world now).
5. Just don’t take too much play time away. And don’t let them play all the time. Because they need to know their letters. And how to tie their shoes. And how to write their names and sentences.
6. Make sure you teach your kids how to handle technology responsibly, because there’s a whole different world they can discover on the Internet, and it’s not pretty.
7. Make sure you let them explore technology, though, because how will they ever learn how to be brilliant computer programmers if they never get to explore?
8. Make sure you teach them how to use their phones properly—not while they’re driving, especially—and make sure they know it’s not appropriate to text dirty pictures to anyone, and make sure you’re keeping tabs on all their social profiles so you can confirm they’re not Internet bullying.
9. But make sure you don’t invade their privacy. Kids hate that.
10. Make sure you help them understand the importance of good grades and going to school every day, without a break, ever, and that perfect attendance is the best award you could ever get, because this is teaching commitment.
11. But make sure they also understand that grades aren’t everything, and, also, it’s important to take time off.
12. Make sure you help your kids know that you’re a parent who will always be available, even though the pressures in your job are mounting and the economy’s not stellar and your raise in income doesn’t really even cover the inflation costs of last year so now you’re working harder than ever.
13. But make sure your kids also know that work takes commitment, because you don’t want them thinking it’s all fun and games.
14. Make sure they don’t see you worry about money, because then they’ll have a bad relationship with money.
15. But make sure they don’t use money too irresponsibly, either, because you don’t want your kids to end back up on your couch.
16. Make sure you don’t let your kids know that they’re good at something, because then they’ll feel the need to be the best at everything, and they’ll seek approval and try to impress by the things they do instead of the people they are.
17. But make sure you don’t just leave them out to dry when they seek your approval.
18. Make sure they don’t have a deflated sense of self, because that kind of thing is paralyzing.
19. But also make sure they don’t have an inflated sense of self, which is just annoying.
20. Make sure you give every kid an award for something, because kids are fragile, you know, and we wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
21. But make sure they don’t all get an award, because you don’t want kids dependent on awards for trying.
22. Make sure your kids know how to be kind.
23. But also make sure that they know how to stand up for themselves.
24. Make sure they can identify and name the bullies.
25. But make sure they love the bullies, too.
26. Make sure your kids understand that it’s a good thing to be bored.
27. But don’t ever let your kids get bored, especially when you’re in a restaurant, where they might disturb other people out to eat with their hard-earned money, or if you’re at the doctor’s office, where they’ll never be able to find something to occupy their imagination, or especially if they’re at home, because kids underfoot. I don’t even have to finish that sentence.
28. Make sure you have all sorts of enrichment toys for them to play with so they’ll stay out of trouble and learn enough to stay ahead of their peers.
29. But don’t give them too many toys, because kids feel overwhelmed when faced with too many choices.
30. Make sure you get your kids in the gifted class (those enrichment toys will help!) so they’ll be challenged in the best possible ways.
31. But make sure they’re not aware that they’re different—special, even—because kids’ egos are a little flimsy, and they could feel sad that they’re different, or they could feel superior, which is slightly worse.
32. Make sure you feed them healthy food and teach them about organic and nonorganic, GMO and non-GMO, because you know the grocery store is like a death trap waiting to spring.
33. But make sure they have enough opportunities to eat like their peers, because everyone knows that a kid who doesn’t get to eat the donuts someone brought to school for a birthday party is a kid who will feel left out. We can’t let kids feel left out.
34. Make sure your kids know how to be independent.
35. But make sure they’re not too independent.
36. Make sure you protect their self-esteem.
37. But make sure they don’t have too much self-esteem, whatever that means.
38. Make sure they believe they deserve the life of their choosing.
39. But make sure they don’t feel entitled to anything.
There are so many things we’re expected to teach our children. So many paradoxes to parenting. So many people trying to tell us how to do it.
Maybe we can just take a deep breath for a minute. Maybe we can let a little of the pressure off. Maybe we can just let it be.
Maybe. But don’t forget that you can’t take too much time for yourself, because that would be unfair to the kids. But also make sure you’re getting enough rest. You don’t want to burn yourself out. You’ll need you strength, your sound mind, because parenting is hard. But also super easy.
You’ll never be confused. Always, probably.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Just Lie Down On, a humor book that does not yet have a release date. To read more of my humor essays, visit Crash Test Parents.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Want to know how I can surely tell that school has started?
Well, of course there’s the amazingly quieter house. That’s a given. But that could just be older boys who are playing on their scooters out front and twins who are locked out back and a baby who’s just as sweet as can be.
There’s also the refrigerator that actually stays closed for an hour at a time, but that could just be kids away for the weekend (any takers?).
No, the biggest clue that school has started in my house is the stack of papers sitting on my bed.
Those are the look-at-later papers.
All three of the boys in school came home with 400 pieces of paper in their red and blue folders (It wasn’t really that bad. It was only 398 papers.) on the first day of school. I had to wade through all of them, because some required further action, like a signature or some kind of permission or even more school supplies. Some of them went into this pile, to be looked at later—or never, which is much more likely.
We started the school year sprinting. We were so organized I was impressed with us. Everybody picked out their clothes the night before, the backpacks were all hung ready to go, and even the school lunches were packed in the fridge. And then the first day happened and all.these.papers. Is it really necessary to send 5,000 school lunch menus when our kids don’t ever eat school lunches? Is it necessary to send three copies of the same exact information sheet? Is there a place where I can opt out of duplicates or papers in general?
Because I know exactly what’s going to happen. It happens every year. We will start off great. I will come down to dinner every evening and sort through those papers in five minutes or less, placing some in a recycling pile, some in a look-at-later pile, some back in the folders because they need returning.
And then I will forget I ever had a look-at-later pile, and by Christmas there will be so many papers we could use them to pretend there’s snow in every room of our house, which would be the closest Texas gets to snow. Or wear-a-coat weather. Or the charming Christmas chill. You know what, though? I’m going to keep that idea to myself and hope great minds really don’t think alike. The only thing worse than five thousand sheets of paper stuffed under a chair in my room is five thousand sheets of paper boys have spread all over the house so they can “play in the snow.”
I suppose that if this is the price I have to pay to have a little peace from an 8-year-old whose daily grand ideas include starting a vegetable garden in our front yard (cucumbers and carrots are starting to grow in the rose garden.) and selling water art paintings out by the mailbox where I can’t even see him, a 6-year-old who’s always hungry and will eat a two-pound bag of apples if I’m not paying attention, and a 5-year-old who likes to snack on Tom’s toothpaste, then I’ll take it. I’m already winded, but, hey, the school year has only just begun. I’m sure my endurance will improve as the months slip by.
Just don’t ask me if I saw the list of school supplies they need for GT. It’s buried somewhere in my look-at-later pile, so. Cut me some slack.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Every year in Texas there’s this wonderful weekend where shoppers get to take advantage of tax-free shopping on school supplies and clothes. Hundreds of thousands of people head out in droves, hitting all the local stores and cleaning out school supplies and every rack of clothes those stores possibly have stocked—all within the first three hours of tax-free weekend.
I just love large crowds with all those excited kids who aren’t mine, weaving in and out of the guarantees-an-anxiety-attack-aisles, so, of course, I’m always one of them. Because, you know, tax-free weekend saves me five dollars and forty-seven cents. Totally worth it.
This year my mom offered to take my 3-year-old twins for the weekend so I could take the three going-to-school ones out for a few necessities and a handful of new clothes (because their jeans are now capris).
Strangely enough, I always look forward to this day. It’s sort of a tradition in our house now, the squeezing through sweaty crowds to get that perfect Spider-Man backpack, the yelling at my kids because they picked out five lunch boxes and they only need one, the robot-like explanation (because it’s so oft repeated) that their daddy and I have a thing called a budget, and this little personalized pencil with a neon green zipper bag is not in that budget. And every time tax-free weekend starts creeping up on us, I can’t sleep for days I’m so excited, almost as if I’m shopping for me (I’m not. I haven’t shopped for me in eight years).
Let me just tell you what you probably already know: Shopping with kids is like walking through hell with a checkbook.
And yet, every year I forget the horror that was last year, and I convince myself that this year will surely be different, because the boys are older and more mature, and they understand the whole budget thing and, because of all this, they won’t annoy me twelve seconds after we get to the store.
We started out well, a whole 600 seconds of not-annoying. We stopped first at an arts and crafts store, where we picked out a chalkboard and some chalk markers their daddy could use to hand-letter their morning routines, personalized and artsy (incentive for getting out of bed on school mornings: they get to see art!). They helped me put the chalkboard and chalk pens carefully in the cart, and we headed for the register and paid with little or no fuss beyond their asking if they could please, please, please look at the Beanie Boos, just real quick. Okay, I said, because they were so good.
And then there was Target.
Now. I love Target. It’s the closest department store to my house, so it’s where I get the majority of things like paper towels and toilet paper and replacement toothbrushes after I caught one of the 3-year-old twins trying to scrub-clean the toilet with the existing ones and then putting them all in his mouth (“Look at my teef!” he said, and I threw up a little.).
The first thing they asked when we walked through the sliding doors was whether we could go look at the toys.
Um, no. We’re here for school stuff, I said. We’re on a time budget. And a money budget.
My mom had already bought all the school supplies this year, so all we really needed were a few clothes, some shoes, a backpack and lunch supplies for all of them. We went to the lunch box section first and spied the Thermoses. Two of them already had Thermoses, so we only needed one.
“But I want this one,” said one of the already-have-a-perfectly-fine Thermos boys.
“No,” I said. “You already have one.”
“But look at this one,” he said. “It’s really cool.”
“Well, too bad it wasn’t here last year,” I said and put it back on the shelf.
Half an hour later, when I finally pulled them away from the Thermos shelf, we wheeled over to the backpacks, where three other mothers were wrestling backpacks from their children’s hands.
“Only one,” they were saying.
Oh, God. Here we go.
I leaned against my cart, trying to empathize with all those poor mothers, while my boys pulled every boy-looking backpack off the racks—Transformers, Darth Vader, Batman, Superman, some dog I’ve never seen before, Super Mario Brothers, Spider-Man, Ninja Turtles, everything you could possibly imagine—one after the other falling at my feet.
“Look at this one, Mama!” they would periodically say. “I want this one!”
They knew they were only getting one backpack, so I didn’t feel the need to repeat what we’d already explicitly talked through on the way here. So I just let them bring their choices and said, “Is this the one you want?” and when they said no, I’d hang it back up.
Fast forward another hour, and they had their backpacks stuffed with their lunch boxes and strapped to their backs, because they wanted to carry them instead of putting them in the cart. That lasted about three minutes, and then they tossed them into the cart. Mostly because, right between the school supplies section and the clothes, is the toys section.
Come on, Target. Give a mom a break.
I lost two of the three boys, but by this time, I was already so annoyed and ready to be done I just left them. They knew where we were going. So it was that only one hung to the side of the basket. Until he realized that his brothers were gone. This one got lost one time and gets really scared when any of his brothers disappear, so of course we had to go back to pry his brothers loose from the LEGO aisle.
“Let’s go, guys,” I said. “Not what we’re here for.”
“Can we just get one LEGO set, Mama? To celebrate the start of school?” the 8-year-old said.
He’s clever, but we’ve never “just bought” a LEGO set for any occasion, I said. So no.
They hopped back on the side of the cart, which collectively weighed 130 pounds. Have you ever tried to push a 130-pound cart with a screwy wheel (because I always pick the screwy-wheeled ones, even if the carts are brand new. It’s just a fact of life.)? People kept passing us giving us dirty looks, because we were, after all, on a shopper’s highway, and I was going well below the speed limit, using every muscle in my arms just to turn the corner.
Finally we reached the clothes. This is where it really fell apart.
I don’t even know what happened. I just remember one boy who wears extra small holding up an extra-large and saying he wanted to buy it, and then the boy who wears medium holding up an extra small and saying he wanted this one and then the one who wears small holding up a large, saying this was the one he most definitely wanted to take home, and I had the luxury of telling them all that they’d picked the wrong sizes.
The clothes had already been so picked over we had to compromise greatly. And when I say compromise greatly, I mean no one got what they wanted. The boy who wanted a minion shirt got a Jurassic Park one instead. The boy who wanted Darth Vader got R2D2 instead. The boy who wanted Spider-Man got a minion shirt the other one wanted.
By the time we made it to the sock and underwear aisle, I was done caring. The 8-year-old got a pack of boxer briefs a whole size too large, the 6-year-old picked out some socks he’ll probably regret choosing the first time he wears shorts and realizes how ridiculous he looks in green and blue stripes that come up to his knees. The 4-year-old picked up a package of socks you needed sunglasses to behold.
Oh, well. Lesson learned. Last time I’ll take my kids school shopping with me.
Although, now that I think of it, next year will surely be different, because the boys will be older and more mature, and they’ll understand the whole budget thing and, because of all that, they won’t annoy me 12 seconds after we get to the store.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Left kid: I’m going to write a story. It’s going to be about [talks for the next 10 minutes.]
Right kid: I wish I could color your mouth shut.
Right twin: I was gonna feed my sunflower seeds to the ducks, but Mama said no. I have to eat them.
Left twin: Oooooh! You said but!
Left kid: This game is so cool.
Right kid: SCREEN!
Front: I wonder what we’re having for dinner.
Middle: Pssst! I figured out how to pick the lock on our door with a plug prong.
Back: Better not tell Mama!
Right: You’re an interesting creature. What do they call you?
Left: Someone please get me out of here.
Him: I just love the smell of my own fart.
Him: My brother just took away a red LEGO and now I can’t build what I need to build b/c there are only five billion more red LEGOs and also the world is ending.
Left kid: You have a really nice booger in your nose.
Middle kid: If you only knew what I just did.
Right kid: I REALLY NEED TO PEE!
Thing 1: Is she still behind us?
Thing 2: Yes.
Thing 1: Think we could slip away without her noticing?
Thing 2: Probably.
Left twin: We ate a whole bottle of kid vitamins.
Right twin: If you only knew what I’m going to do to the toilet later today.
Him: Don’t worry. I just fell asleep while I was talking, too.
And, a special bonus:
